In the Shadow of the Crystal
by Alezandros Stormrage
Summary: An AU of Sailor Moon. Has original characters assisting Sailor Moon in her struggles against evil while the fight between the Posiverse and Negaverse rages onward. Refrences to crossover material may be added in later chapters. anime/manga refs also incld
1. Chapter 1: Reminisce

In the Shadow of the Crystal

Chapter 1: Reminisce

"It's been a long time Alex." It was those words which echoed clearly in my mind. The words Neo-Queen Serenity said to me, as I walked up to her, upon my arrival in the city. She still looked as beautiful as I remembered her so many years ago. So much has happened, and in so little time! The war with the Negaverse was over at last, and we could finally all live peacefully. As I sat on the windowpane, using the side of the window as back support, I stared out towards the city of Neo-crystal Tokyo and the stars above. Starting to relax, I began reminiscing about all the things that had transpired. The window was wide open, and the night breeze cool and intoxicating for the time of year that had befallen the city. The sky was as clear and brilliant as ever, like the first time I met them, it was exactly how I remembered it. It's so funny how life can spin you around fifty million ways, but still you wind right back up where you started. Heh… Let me tell you how I got here, and then perhaps you might understand…

"Hey! I found something! Luke! Alex! Get over here!" Treks had yelled at us from an underground passageway. He was checking out a passageway separated from the main tunnel we were currently in. Treks looks a lot like myself. I stand at about 5' 11", with Ever-change Eyes that are a hazel-blue most of the time, athletic without looking like a bodybuilder, and short brown hair. I was also wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of loose blue jeans. We all were to keep the dust and dirt off of us from being underground. Treks only real differences are that his eyes were a light starburst blue color, and he stood roughly two inches shorter than me making him 5' 9" in his own right. Most could tell that me and him were brothers simply by looking at us. Like the other knights, we appeared to be at an age of 15 years, although our true age was closer to 200 years.

Turlus was also with him at the time. Now Turlus was something else. He stood about 6' 2" and was built like a tank, lithe but unmovable. He has almost black hair that comes down to mid neck in the back. Turlus' eyes are a misty sort of bluish color and his face was as flawless as one of Michelangelo's marble statues. I always thought of Turlus as being the perfect bodyguard with how big and strong he looked, but even with as serious as he was, he has been one of my closest friends. Like other regiments of knights, us 7 Posiverse knights were inseparable. We were brothers in arms and in blood, we swore to live, fight, and die together. We fought for each other and for the cause of righteousness and honor. We fought for the safety of the royal line of the Silver Millennium, the royal line of the princesses of our solar system, and for the safety of all those in the universe.

"Hey Treks, what'cha find?" I asked him as I approached him and Turlus. Luke appeared around the bend with me from the cavern we were in. Luke was similar to me in build. He stood about as tall as me, 5' 10" to be exact. He had spiky looking short dirty blonde hair, and a pair of light brown eyes.

"Well? Check it out!" Treks said as he gestured. What stood before me and the others bewildered us. It was a door, a very high tech looking door with a rusted up but functional security panel. After some general analysis, we determined the door had not been used in a very long time.

"Hmmm… it seems I may be able to easily break the security lock that has gotten this door so tightly shut…" Turlus said while examining the Panel. Me and treks were busy checking out the exterior of the door and the stone around it, while Luke was busy covering our backsides in case some unwanted attention decided to show up. We were probably a good 90 or so Ft. below the Earth's surface, and I remembered thinking about all the possibilities as to why there'd be a metal door, with a security lock even, down this far below the surface. Furthermore, I remembered wondering why it had looked like this door hadn't been used in ages. Was it an abandoned hidden smuggling route? Perhaps it was the entrance to a storage silo? Or was it made to look abandoned and was, in fact, actually a trap? Or maybe even an ancient alien ship that had been buried here long ago? Either way, we had the full intention of going in, checking it out, and seeing if there would be any way we could use what was behind this door for our own purposes.

"It's open! I got it!" Turlus said. He always was exceptionally good at breaking into high security zones and dismantling locks. Ensuring defensive positions was one of his main trade skills. It was one skill that came in handy a while back, when he had rescued me single handedly from the clutches of our current arch nemesis, Tralus…

The door clanged and shuddered, and to my amazement, it actually opened. I figured it wouldn't, and that we'd have to pry it open. It's sealed doors parting ways, giving us access to a room that had buttons much similar to an elevator shaft. The buttons were lit and there was auxiliary lighting in the cramped room. "Knights… we don't know what will be awaiting us at the bottom of this elevator. Don your armors, once ready we shall begin our descent." I said. They nodded, and with that we all raised our right hand to our left shoulder. Making a fist with the hand and swiftly bringing the fist sideways towards the center of our chest. We shouted the words that would summon our armors.

"Truth… armor… IGNITE!" I shouted, and in a flash of Sapphire blue light my armor began to materialize over me. Out of the light that had engulfed my body, full body armor phased around me. The armor, called the Blue Sapphire armor of Truth, was the color of a brilliant, deep sapphire blue with gold trim. It had an ornate helm, long shoulder guards, a plated piece covering the chest and back area, leggings with shin guards, arm guards, plated boots and plated gloves. What wasn't covered was in a silvery grayish, mail-like material. The others shouted similar phrases, Treks shouted for his Gold Topaz armor of Peace. Luke shouted for the Orange Sardonyx armor of Courage, and finally Turlus, shouting for the Red Sunstone armor of Honor.

Once we were all in the shaft, I pressed the button for the elevator to go down. The doors closed, and we began our descent at a considerable rate. After some time in the elevator, all of us were feeling like we would descend forever, when we suddenly hit bottom and the doors slid open. When we stepped off of the elevator we were greeted by a very dark corridor. Luke and Turlus grabbed flashlights while I looked around at what we were standing in. The only sounds in the whole place were the doors behind us, and the elevator, which began its ascent back to the top.

Just then my communicator device went off, startling me at the vibration. I pulled the device off of my belt and looked at it. The indicator screen read 'Chris', telling me who was on the other line. "Alex here." I said holding the comm. device close to my mouth.

"Hey Alex, How's the search going? We didn't find anything yet unfortunately, and the twins are fighting again… how'd you guys fare?" Chris' voice came over the comm. device better than I anticipated it would down here. The twins he referred to were called Mark and Matt, the three of them were the last of our merry group of knights.

"Quite well actually, we've found what appears to be an abandoned facility. We just cracked the security lock, and are proceeding to scout the facility." I replied.

"Really…? Wow! AWESOME! I hope we can use it! It'd be nice to finally have a pad to call our own!" 'Yeah…' I thought. Chris always was optimistic like that.

"We'll have to see what our results bring us, I need you three to head to sector beta 5, epsilon 2. I want your team to take the underground passage near there. Once at the cave entrance, follow our markers to the elevator system and take it down to meet us, got it?" I replied with enthusiasm and determination in my voice.

I Hoped that what I was doing was enough, and that I was leading my friends the way a good commander would lead his men. With us at war with the forces of the Negaverse, there could be no mistakes lest it cost us our lives. They will hunt us down to the last, and we likewise to them. It is our sworn duty and responsibility to ensure that this darkness is eradicated from the universe, and is something I shall ensure is done to the best of mine, and my friends, abilities. "Got it, we'll move right out. Chris out." He said. The comm. flashed the words 'link disconnected'. As it did, I reattached the device back to my belt.

Our first priority here was to either find the primary control room, or some form of housing room for the main computer and try to get it online. Which was exactly what we began doing. Without needing a word of where to go first we all headed in the same direction, forward. All of us had our swords out of our respective subspaces at this point. Each knight's sword, except for mine, was sheathed to their left side; the others all had one hand on the hilt of their swords, ready to draw at a moment's notice. I noticed as we were walking, that there were strips along the side of the walls. They appeared similar to what you would see for holograph projectors and I wondered why they were built into these walls here. Occasionally, we also passed panels on the walls which looked similar to computer access terminals.

A few moments later, we walked through a set of doors that had opened much quieter then the entrance doors did. Behind those doors was a large open room that appeared to be similar to a starship bridge with a bunch of seats and panels. Nothing in the room, like the rest of the base, had any power to it. Also what appeared to be blast shielded windows lined the far wall which took up about 2/3rds of the room's walls. I recognized the architecture from being aboard many large starships in my past. Starship windows always had a special thick armor plating come over them in times of battle. These walls appeared no different to me.

"This whole facility looks abandoned." Treks chirped in. I then watched as he walked over to one of the control consoles. "Wow, Have a look at this! These panels, they can't be more then 50 years old! A little work and we could have this place working properly for us in, oh say… a week? But this technology… it's simply amazing!" he was our lead software and programming analyst of the group, and the secondary hardware engineer for all technical devices, military or otherwise. I was the primary. I loved to tinker and my talents with different technologies got me the position in our group.

"I agree… But we must take careful measures to ensure our safety; we'll still need a full sweep of this facility to ensure that it isn't being used… and probably some major housekeeping… Take a look at all the dust!" Luke sprung out while blowing the dust off a panel.

I merely nodded at the remarks of treks, my second in command, and my lead, and only, medical officer. "Let's get started then shall we? Treks have you found any way to get that console operative yet?" I said to him as I looked in his direction. He was busy messing with some wires underneath the console he had approached.

"I… think… so… OUCH!" Treks said. He gave a yelp of pain as some circuitry sparked that he was messing with. As soon as he did, words lit up on the huge central screen near the main shielded window. '_Nanoelectronic Artificial Omnipresent Machina Intelligence system now initiating boot process… good afternoon visitor…' _Needless to say, we were impressed.

"N.A.O.M.I. system huh?" Treks said in awe.

Suddenly, a female voice resounded through the room we occupied. "Boot process complete, now commencing full systems check. 5 percent complete." The voice said.

"Who are you? And where are you at!" I yelled holding my sword up in a defensive stance. I could feel my body instantly snap into full alert mode and was prepared to give an immediate retreat order if this place proved to be a trap.

"Greetings operators, I am NAOMI, the central A.I. of this facility known as Base Prime." The female voice said.

My sword dropped a little. "Naomi…? So… what do you do exactly, Naomi?" Treks said. We all looked around to see if we could find the speakers that the voice came from.

"I am the primary control system that runs this facility. Full facility systems check now 90 percent complete." NAOMI said, her voice coming from all directions of the room.

"Alex, it's likely that this place will be in need of some serious repair." Turlus said, eying a panel that was dangling from some wires.

"This is true. At this time, based on my preliminary scans of the system, Base Prime is in need of heavy maintenance and repair." Naomi Replied with her even tone.

"So… what happens once you are repaired?" Treks asked NAOMI.

"I become fully capable of fulfilling any operational task set before me by my administrators. Now activating auxiliary lighting. Visitors, you are required to be logged as per regulations and protocols bound within this System. I must now ask for you to state your name and faction, with the commander of your team starting first so they may be given unrestricted permissions within the System." NAOMI said as dim lighting began filling the rooms and corridors of the base. Luke and Turlus shut off their flashlights and placed them in subspace.

"What'll we do Alex? Should we trust this not to be a trap and place our information in its databanks?" Luke asked me. I contemplated our next move for a moment, and then addressed the monitor in front of me.

"Naomi, before we do that I need a few questions answered. Tell me… who originally built this… Base Prime, and where are the creators now?" I asked her, looking at the monitor's flashing bars.

"I apologize; unfortunately I do not have any recorded data on my creators or their whereabouts. Based on event logs within my Datacore, my Datastore systems containing such information no longer exists. Also, my last event logs indicate there has been an explosion, as well as a circuit rupture, in the primary hard drive system within my Datacore which normally comprises the backbone of my infrastructure. All non-essential data, based on my logs, was removed before full shutdown. I can only assume it to have been manually wiped by the previous inhabitants of this facility. All that is left is my operating system programming interface, which is currently running from a secondary system Datacore." Naomi had given me vital information to make proper judgment on the matter.

"I wonder if the original owners will come back for this base?" Treks asked.

"I doubt it. She's been offline; it seems, for a very long time. It's just not likely at this point I think." I replied.

"The System log indicates my last active timestamp is approximately 46 years, 4 months, 23 days, 6 hours, and 47 minutes old." Naomi chimed in.

"So, just under 50 years? No wonder this place is so dusty!" Luke said just before blowing the dust off of another console.

"Under normal circumstances, robotic drones handle all tertiary maintenance concerns for Base Prime; however I am unable to establish a connection with the primary drone control relay system at this time, which allows operational control of them through my system. It appears as though the control relay is not functioning. If I were to be given access to the relay system I would be able automate drone functions on cleaning the base of all pollutants and allergens immediately and have this facility looking at optimal condition in less than three days' time." NAOMI replied.

I looked at my comrades briefly before speaking. "Three days' time huh? Hmm… not bad… well, this place seems a good a place as any out there to hide from our enemies." I said with a smirk. The others also gave nods and smiles of approval. I then turned back to the console. "Naomi, my name is Alex Storm. My faction is Posiverse. I am a Posiverse knight of the Silver Millennium, outcast and exiled from the Posiverse for holding loyalty to our homeland which was destroyed long ago. Our intent is to search for a new home. One in which we can hide in secret from the Negaverse while we conduct means to rid the universe of the threat our enemies pose to it." I said, with a serious tone in my voice.

She was a well-designed A.I. The programming was definitely top notch and not of Earth, that much was for certain. "Alex Storm… Logged and identified. Now granting full administrator privileges on your profile. Also the full facility system scan is ready for viewing. Would you like me to display the statistics of the diagnostic report onscreen?" Naomi said evenly. I remembered thinking about how well the audio processors had been working in spite of the repairs this system needed.

"My name is Treks Solemn, the second in command of the knights of the Posiverse under Alex Storm. Naomi if you would be so kind we'd be happy to see the diagnostic report you have to show us." Treks said smoothly enough.

"Treks Solemn… Logged and identified. So am I correct in assuming that Alex Storm is your commanding officer? Alex, shall I grant secondary administrative privileges to Treks Solemn?" NAOMI replied.

"Yes, that is correct Naomi. Go ahead and grant him the privys." I replied to her as the console viewer in front of us flashed, a detailed report appearing of all systems and sectors with their own individual reports within Base Prime.

"Now granting all secondary administrator privileges to Treks Solemn's profile." NAOMI said. As she did, Treks sat down and began reading the reports that flashed onscreen.

"Hey Naomi do you have a command station here?" Treks asked while looking over the results.

"Affirmative, the room you are currently located in is the primary command station of the base." NAOMI replied. At those words I gazed again around the room we were in. I wondered how I didn't catch on to this earlier. I had been in many starship command bays, and facility tactical control stations, plenty of times.

Just then, my train of thought was broken by Luke. "Hello Naomi, my name is Luke Tanryoku. Does this facility have a medical station in it?" he said, looking over Treks' shoulder at the readout.

"Luke Tanryoku… Logged and identified. Affirmative, there is a medical station on the grounds of this facility. My diagnostic scans of the facility indicate that the medical station is at 89 percent operational capacity, with most of the equipment functioning at 75 percent or better on average." NAOMI replied.

"Naomi, I need you to give all the system accesses to Luke that you would normally give the lead medical officer." I told her. I looked over at Luke who smiled and nodded in my direction. I In turn, nodded back.

"Now granting medical administrative privileges to Luke Tanryoku's profile." She replied in an even tone. I began assessing in my head all the things we would need to do in order to get this base functional on a level that we could use it at. There were other thoughts that had concerned me as well… one in particular was 'why was this base abandoned like this.'

Turlus went next; his voice portraying his inner calm. "Naomi… My name is Turlus Meiyo. What is security like inside Base Prime? Can you give us a layout of the security measures taken and said protocols?" Turlus said while eying that security panel he had seen earlier. It was still dangling from some exposed wiring.

"Turlus Meiyo… Logged and identified. Unfortunately current scans of the facility indicate damages to the security infrastructure all over, which places the overall base security down to 45 percent. However, when security is running at optimal, anyone trying to get in would not be able to do so easily without potentially fatal consequences. If you would like to view a detailed report, you will need authorization from an assigned security administrator in order to see such reports concerning the security framework of Base Prime. Once permission is granted, I shall bring up the layout of the cameras and automated defense systems placed within and around this facility." NAOMI had stated once again in her very realistic tone.

"Go ahead and give him the permissions of a security administrator, Naomi" I said to the computer. I looked over at Turlus who gave me a simple nod of approval.

"Affirmative, now granting lead security administrative privileges to Turlus Meiyo's profile… profile changes applied, now compiling detailed reports of Base Prime's security infrastructure. Please stand by." NAOMI had done as requested, and soon enough Turlus was overlooking the reports that were generated onscreen.

"Allright, we'll need to scout the base for threats and any signs of life before nightfall. We'll also need to ensure that this computer system has no hidden coding somewhere that might make it a threat to us." I said, looking around at my comrades. They all nodded in agreement. "Treks, do you think you can get into this thing's programming?" I looked over at him as I asked him. I knew his skills at hacking were top notch, which made him perfect for the task.

"I will be happy to open my programming willingly to show that I mean no harm. I just ask one thing in return, and that is to please not deactivate me again…" NAOMI replied through her voice systems, she had almost sounded sad at that moment.

"Of course Naomi, not a problem. Well! That solves our main issue. Next we will need to establish power systems." I said while looking over the diagnostics report of the base.

"If you would like Alex, I can show you the location of the primary reactor core within Base Prime." NAOMI chimed in.

"that'd be great, Naomi." I replied with a smile. As I said those words the visuals on the screen split in half, the left side had the diagnostic report and the right showed a map of the base with two dots, one labeled our location and the other labeled 'reactor core', and a line that was drawn in between the two to show the easiest route to it. I looked over the route on the map carefully before making my call.

"Treks, Can you and Luke get there?" I asked, looking at my second.

"Absolutely, Thought you'd never ask!" he replied enthusiastically.

"Based on my internal reports I should be able to get backup pre auxiliary power generators online. Reports indicate there is power remaining within them, however further analysis indicates I will only be able to sustain power for the next 45 minutes. Then the power cells will drain fully and I will be forced to return to auxiliary power. Would you like me to activate the remaining power cells at this time?" NAOMI said clearly.

"Wait until we get to the reactor, we're going to need all the light we can get to fix it." Treks replied, looking up and around at the ceiling.

"All right Alex, we'll keep in touch." Luke said to me as he waived the comm. Device in his hand. I watched as he started towards the door with treks in tow.

A few minutes later, NAOMI activated the backup power generators. It was at that moment I had gotten my first real look at the command station we were standing in. The command station was big, the size of your standard living room I'd say, and again I was reminded at how it looked more like the bridge of a massive starship. There was what appeared to be a captain's seat in an elevated central area and huge monitor screens that encompassed over half of the circular looking wall. When the lights kicked on, some holograph panels in front of the smaller monitors also appeared. Small and light orange in color, I could tell they were the terminal controls. Taking a second to look, I counted at least 10 seats.

I was amazed at how high tech this room was, and wondered how we were ever going to figure it out. One thing we didn't have was time to figure out how to use foreign technology. But, as I walked up to one of the main consoles, I began to notice how similar the technology was to some places within the Posiverse. "This is… amazing! It's just like at the Posiverse!" I said in awe as I ran my fingers over the key panel. At that moment, I knew we weren't going to have any trouble at all with this technology.

As I was looking over the projection system embedded in the workstations which powered the holo-keypads, my comm. device flashed again. I picked it up off my belt and turned it on. "Alex here." I said into its mouthpiece.

"Hey Alex! How are things going down there? We reached our destination, would you like us to proceed downward to your location?" Chris replied.

"Things are going well. This facility was a base of sorts; we've successfully activated its main computer system and found the command center of the facility." I said, thinking about everything that has recently happened to us.

"Oh wow a base, seriously? That's amazing! Leave it to you, leader, to find something extraordinary!" Chris said in his usual energetic way.

I smirked before replying. "Yeah, wait till you see this place, this technology isn't far off from the Posiverse. Right now though, I need your team to armor up, proceed down the elevator shaft and meet the rest of us at our location. I'm opening my comm.'s beacon now so you can find us." I said then flipped a small switch on the side of the comm. device.

"Roger that leader, we're heading to your location now, our ETA is about 10 minutes. See you soon! Chris out." The comm. device flashed offline after that and me and Turlus were left to our work.

"So Turlus, what do you think? With the security as bad as it is, can we use this place?" I said to him while checking out a diagnostic report on one of the bigger monitors.

"Well… given how things are. The fact that there's at least a medical facility, security systems already integrated into the base, and a fully operational computer AI system that is also already fully integrated into the base. Also, there is the fact that this base is located underground, AND that it is fully functional even in its worst. I'd say that aside from everything in need of some maintenance in some form or another, we could modulate this place accordingly to fit in with our plans and start using it immediately. What do you say Alex?" Turlus said without seemingly taking a breath.

"I agree. When the others get to our location we'll get started assessing and prepping this place so that by nightfall we'll at least have some lighting and preemptive security." I smiled as i replied to Turlus. Just then, the main doors to the command room opened and in came Chris, Mark, and Matt. Chris has a slender-muscular build and stood at about 5' 10" and bore the Blue Aquamarine armor of Life. His hair was a fiery red color that was cut very short and made to be spiky, at least that's how it looks with the helm off. His eyes always varied between dark green and light green. He also had a face set that made him appear boyish and a bit younger, which I always thought seemed to match well with his vigor and exuberance. It was easier to cope with the man if I could pretend he was younger than me sometimes. At the same time though, his comedic ways always kept our spirits up and our burdens always seemed to feel less then what they were with him around.

Mark had a build similar to Chris's only not quite as muscular. He stood about 5' 7", had blonde hair that was trimmed up in the back with long bangs in the front that were spiked up and pulled backwards some. Mark also had a pair of light blue eyes which were surrounded by a face set that would probably make Fabio jealous. He wore the White-Green Jasper armor of Trust.

Matt looked exactly like Mark due to the fact that they were twins, but with a few noticeable differences. For one, Matt has short military-style light brown hair, and bright green eyes. Mark's demeanor is also a bit calmer then Matt's, which can be a bit brash at times. Of course their clashes of personality always get them into arguing with one another. Matt wore the Green Emerald armor of Wisdom as proud as any other knight on my team with theirs.

"Fashionably early, we're here! Guess it only took 4 minutes. Ahh well, better early then never there! So what's the take on this place? We crashin' here from now on?" Chris said while looking around.

"Hello Visitors. You are required to be logged as per regulations and protocols in this system. Please state your name, faction, and intent." NAOMI said. With the security measures all offline in some way, there was no way yet to block outsiders. For the moment, that suited our situation fine, but it was something I made a mental note of to address a.s.a.p.

"Whoa! What was that?" Matt said, shocked and looking around the room.

"That would be Naomi, this facility's computer AI system. Go ahead and give her the information she needs, she's safe, at least as far as we can tell." I replied calmly while looking at an updated readout on the monitor of the base's security systems.

"All right then! I'll go first! Hey baby! My name's Chris Ukiyo and I'm with Alex, our leader! Are you like one of those computers that have a hott, full figured, holographic female body like in the movies?" Chris said out loud. I just shook my head and smirked as I continued looking over the diagnostic.

"Chris Ukiyo … Logged and Identified. Hello Chris. No I'm afraid I do not have any artificially holographic representations of myself. It is logical for me to assume that my creators did not have the capability to implement this feature at the time of my manufacturing. I'm sorry Chris. Could you please define 'full figured female'? This does not happen to be in my definitions database at this time." NAOMI replied in her usual tone.

"Yeah, sure! No problem babe! See, a full figured female is one who stands about 2 or more inches shorter than a man, has really big brea … OUCH!" Chris's description of the 'full figured woman' was interrupted by Mark who quickly slapped him in the back of the head.

"Tell the computer later Chris… I'm going next." Mark replied with a slight smirk on him. It seemed that he wanted to do that to Chris for some time now. "Hello Naomi, my name is Mark Irai. Like Chris and the others I am also with Alex, our leader." Mark said.

"And I'm Matt Saiki. Everything is the same as the others, I'm also with Alex. Me and my brother were wondering if you had a lab here for the design and production of weapons and technology." Matt said.

"Hey! I was going to ask that, Matt!" Mark snapped at him "hey bro, what can I say? Guess you just weren't fast enough! hahaha!" Matt replied victoriously.

"Enough you two! We've got to stay on track. We still don't have a secured location yet and we're still way too vulnerable to a Negaverse assault! So please, cool it?" I exclaimed.

"Yes sir..." They both said simultaneously, all their aggression instantly deflated.

"Mark Irai… Matt Saiki… Logged and Identified. Affirmative, there is a laboratory within Base Prime for the design and testing of weapons, technology, and biological resources. The only thing that is currently not in the laboratory is stock of basic materials."

"Allright!" both Matt and mark said simultaneously with a huge grin at each other. You could see enthusiasm beaming in their faces from the news that was given to them. I knew exactly what they were thinking and I nodded my approval of the news as well. They are the best at making weapons and testing out new ways to blow things up. Any tech they have ever made has helped us out in some way or another. I was pleased to hear that they would finally have a fully functional lab that could be tailored to their specific tasks.

"Good, now listen up guys. I need this place thoroughly scouted out. I want two groups, one to scout the northern and the other to the southern end of the base. Find out everything you can about this place and see what we need. Note any potential physical security risks or breaches. I'll remain here and continue tinkering with these consoles to see if there's a way I can route any more power to the lighting in this base. When we have things under control here, I will get all of your respective profile permissions within the computer set up for use." I said with a serious tone in my voice.

"Turlus I want you to take Mark with you, Chris, you take Matt. Turlus, your group will hit the northern area in the direction of the reactor core. When you get to the reactor I want you, Mark, to assist Treks with whatever he needs to get the Reactor fully activated. Turlus, from there on you will be on your own to scout the reset of that wing of the facility. If any of you find anything that seems unusual, hail me." I smirked.

My enthusiasm could be heard through every word that I said. The hope of finally having a home after searching for 2 years was starting to come true. 'God had definitely provided for us.' I thought. Of course God had always provided for us, and we were in turn always very grateful.

"Yes sir! We'll get right on it!" Chris said, giving a salute as he always did with big orders. The others all gave nods of acceptance of their new missions and promptly turned to execute their objectives. Once they had left, the comm. link flashed on. Its screen read 'Treks'. I picked up the device and turned it on.

"What's up treks? How are the repairs coming?" I asked.

"Repairs are slow, it's a lot worse off here then I thought it would be. I'm going to need more than 45 minutes." He replied sounding a bit worried.

"Let me see what I can do from here, I may be able to reroute some of the power from the areas of the base that don't need it in. hang on a sec." I said over the comm. link while pulling up a powergrid diagnostic report.

After a moment, Treks voice came through the comm. link again. "So you think you'll be able to do it then?" he asked me.

"With some luck yeah. I have a few ideas as to how I can reroute power for us. Hopefully, at least one of them will work. Think you can get that reactor core operational?" I replied

"Hey Alex, you know me! By the way… when are you planning to call April down?" Treks asked.

"When I've got the all clear from the guys that are doing the scouting, I'll give her the signal; we can't afford to have the last remaining Cetra endangered… in the meantime, give me updates every thirty minutes on your progress okay?" I replied.

"Will do, Alex!" Was the last thing treks said before the comm. link flashed link disconnected. As I sat there waiting for the latest powergrid map update to finish. My thoughts trailed off thinking of April and how good it would be to see her again…


	2. Chapter 2: Echoes of the Royal line

In the Shadow of the Crystal

Chapter 2: Echoes of the Royal line

It took almost two weeks for us to get our newly acquired home into a semi operational status. In that time we discovered that the base, as we called it now, had an arms storage room, training facility, bunkers for personnel, and a whole slew of other useful things that we would be able to use. We also learned much more about the A.I. known as NAOMI and her functions aboard the base. During our first day there I was able to eke out an additional 1 ½ hours of power from the grid for lighting to repair the reactor core, and after shutting off from being fully drained, Treks managed to get the reactor pumping out energy just minutes afterwards. Thankfully, throughout all of the chaos of running from the Negaverse, and looking for a new home, Mark had found time to make a battery cell augmentation for our flashlights that allowed them to operate continuously for 50 straight years as long as the bulb could withstand it. But through all that happened, I found myself here once again, in the command center, staring at the consoles that were now brimming with life and vibrancy.

Once the power was back on we began migrating all of our hidden stores from various areas around earth to the new base to use in renewing the facility back to operational status. We also replaced and repaired most of the consoles, security locks, doors, and everything that would be essential to live below the earth's surface for a good long time with adequate security and comfort. It was a tiring job and had taken us much longer then it probably should have, but with us having many close call Negaverse encounters during runs for supplies, it couldn't be helped. Thankfully the Negaverse had been slow to appear those times, and better still, hadn't found our new secret location.

Our initial predictions as to the depth the base was deployed at were off as well. Originally we had estimated some 200 feet below the surface of the earth; but NAOMI had told us it was closer to 13 miles. I remembered thinking how the depth would hide us from most deep planetary scans the Negaverse could muster, and how amazed that the structure could hold so well down here amidst the pressure of earth's gravity. Our only problem was getting materials needed for living but once again, the previous base owners had already settled that for us via escape elevators. While the rest of repairs were underway, I assigned Chris and Turlus the task of scanning the news feeds of earth for any signs of the Negaverse. Everyone else, including myself, was assigned to the task of maintenance and repair of all base systems that were considered top priority. My thoughts were interrupted by a soft embrace from behind me, arms wrapping around my chest. "Hello Dearie!" A soft female voice said close to my ear.

"Hey April." I replied to her, smiling. As far as women went, April was a sight to behold. She has beautiful, deep sapphire blue eyes. Her face was delicate with her chin coming down to a soft point, and long wavy brown hair which flowed down to her hips. Her complexion pale, as though unblemished by sunlight, save for her right arm in which there was a marking resembling a tribal or Celtic mark by her wrist which wrapped around like a bracelet.

Every time I looked, the tattoo was light gold in color. However the guys once said to me that the tattoo changed, between dark and light green, when I wasn't around. April wore a dark blue dress over her slim body that hung snugly against her hips. It came down to just below her knees and was buttoned in the center of the dress from top to near bottom. The dress was cut in a V shape around her neck to expose some cleavage and was also open to her mid back. She had a pink decorated broach, with a fairly large oval shaped sapphire in the center. The broach was clipped to her dress at the very point of the V where the buttons started at. She also wore a cute pair of sandals, with tiny straps, to hold them to her dainty feet.

She pulled herself in closer and pressed herself on me enough so I could feel the warmth of her body. I was glad our air conditioning and ventilation systems were working at that moment. I brought my hand back and patted her gently on her side after which she let go and stepped over to my right. I took a second to watch her come into view before continuing my work.

"How has today been for you? I see you're hard at work again…" She replied with a hint of sadness in her voice. It was a stressful 3 weeks for all of us, and during most of the time spent I hadn't gotten much time to myself. April had been very worried about my lack of sleep recently and was ever concerned of me not being able to defend myself properly should our enemies attack us.

"Yeah there's been a lot to do lately; it looks like we're mostly done though." I said smiling at her. Or well, at least as well as I could while focusing on the monitor in front of me.

"Really? That's great news!" She replied with a smile as well. It always seemed to me that when she smiled, the room would always go from dark, to bright, but it's something I could never figure out, or well, never had time to. "So have you eaten yet Alex?" It was at that moment, when she said those words, in which my stomach decided to growl in protest of being empty.

"Heh I guess not." I replied with a gentle smirk.

"Then we should go get some food!" she said smiling brightly at the notion of finally getting me off my work, if even for a little while. I always forgot about eating when I was engrossed in work. Seeing that there was no way out of this, I set down my tools and my tool belt on the chair beside me, and left the room with April at my side.

After some walking, we arrived at the café room everyone agreed to call the lounge. The name was decided while stocking the room with food and supplies one day. Me and April got the food we wanted, freshly prepared by the automatic dispensers within the lounge, and sat down at a nearby table. Shortly after we began eating, Chris came rushing into the room, skidding to a halt right at the edge of the table, nearly falling over into it. "What's wrong, Chris?" I asked. It took him a few moments to catch his breath from the distance he apparently covered in such a short time before he was able to say anything.

"Alex! We just found out something astounding in the news… OOHHHH! Is that a brownie?" He said without skipping a beat, all seriousness gone from him as his eyes locked onto the brownie. We both knew that brownies were his favorite and this was the last one we had. Earlier in the week we risked a run for 'specialty' foods. Brownies was one thing on the list. Smirking, I waved my hand, dismissing his childishness at his favorite food, and relinquished the brownie to him. I knew all too well that there was no way to keep it from him. One way or another he would have taken at least half of it from my plate before the meeting was over.

"Take it." I said, chuckling slightly as I pushed the brownie over to him. As soon as he had gotten ahold of it he began eating, savoring every bite. "What did you find out in the newsfeeds you were studying?" I asked him, remembering that he mentioned that very thing before seeing the brownie. Personally I thought it was a ploy to come to the lounge and get me to hand over my lunchtime treat. Something he was very good at concocting. But what he said next, even with his full mouth, astounded me.

"We found some information while scanning the planet's newsfeeds linking recent sightings all over the planet of monsters, but concentrated more so within the past few months in Tokyo and London. Along with those reports, there are others with people possessing strange abilities. We also found medical documentation of people, who suffered from a severe loss of energy and entered into a temporary comatose state, were either victims of these subsequent monster attacks or the causes were noted as unknown at the time." He told me. He had a very serious look on him and I was certain he was thinking the same thing I was.

"It sounds like the allies of the Negaverse for sure…" I said, darkly. One thing we all knew for certain is that there was one ally of the Negaverse, the dark kingdom, which thrived off the energies of humans, and it was clear at that point that they had started their efforts once again. This time it seemed they were centering in Tokyo and London.

"There's more. In both London, and Tokyo, where the greatest amount of sightings has happened, the newsfeeds report sightings of defenders against these monsters. They're called Sailor Soldiers, or Senshi, based on reports from eyewitnesses. However, the newsfeeds from London report that there have been no more sightings of either the Senshi or the monsters in the past 3 weeks. That particular article was dated 4 days ago." Chris went on. Then a strange glint came in his eye and a sly smile across his lips which I had come to know all too well. "The reports say they're all chicks too man! We should totally go so I can pick one of them up!" He said in his exuberant voice. I almost fell off my chair when he said that, April laughed at his remark.

"Oh man! Are girls the only thing you think about?" I said, exasperated. April giggled in the background.

"Well hey dude! We're all over here single and stuff, and I mean you and April are an item! It's not fair that you're the only one that gets to have a girlfriend, Alex!" He replied, crossing his arms and mocking my tone a little. I blushed, took a long drink of the soda I had poured.

"Not my girlfriend. Not going out with her. She's my guardian angel, remember?" I said in my cup, the sound mostly muffled.

"Yeah dude, but she's only PART Angel! She's other part Cetra! You got a chance! Go for it!" Chris replied in a hushed tone to me as I was looking at April, who had gotten up to drop off our dishes into the dishwasher. I thought about the first time we met, when I had first seen her and thought that it was amazing the angels really did have wings. Hers were so white and big, but nowadays she keeps her wings tucked and hidden away into the ether so as to blend in with the rest of the humans on the planet. She was 13 at the time, or looked that age when I had first met her. I also recanted her telling me who she was and how she wasn't full angel either, that she was part Cetra, a race of planet cultivators for the lifestream of the universe and that was why she was allowed to take a primary role in my life. I caught myself thinking that it would be nice if she _would_ go out with me. But quickly dismissed it with the thought that angels, no matter what their bloodline may be, just don't 'go out' with anyone or at least that's what I had thought at the time. After mentally composing myself I snapped out of my blanked out state and looked at Chris.

"So the most recent activity is in Tokyo?" I asked looking at Chris. He merely nodded. "Then it seems we'll have to go to Tokyo and check out these rumors." I said. I wasn't looking too forward to leaving our sanctuary we had found so soon, but it was a task that I knew I would have to spearhead myself. If for some reason we encountered the Negaverse directly. Then I wanted to make sure I was the one there at first contact, I had to do what I could to protect my knights, and with Tralus still at large with his team, I wasn't about to risk my friends.

"Has Treks finished the teleportation system yet?" Chris asked me while looking at April. After shooting him a quick glare to scold him at exactly what he was staring hard at on April, I replied.

"No unfortunately, but he reported the estimated completion time to be roughly 3 days from now, give or take. So here's what we'll do. I'm going to go ahead while the rest of you finish up the tasks at hand here. Chris I want you to take Trek's place and Treks will take my place in repair ops. Turlus will have to scan on his own but I want him to scan the media around Tokyo only once every 6 hours at half hour scan intervals. When he's not doing that he can help out wherever he is most needed. When the teleportation system is completed, I want you all to meet up with me in Tokyo. So in light of that, the teleportation system should take top priority." Chris was an experienced mechanic, mainly in star fighter design and maintenance, so a teleportation system would have been a piece of cake for him to handle. At that moment though, April became very serious. I remembered thinking how much I hated it when she did this because I always knew exactly what argument was coming.

"I'm coming with you then…" She said.

"You can't, it's too dangerous." I replied.

"Alex, I have to go with you, I must be there to help you in your times of need! That is what I'm here for!" She plead to me, tears welling up in her eyes. I knew all too well, that it was pointless to argue with her from this point on. Her mind was made up and nothing was going to change it. Not even tying her up to a post would deter her. She'd just bring it with her.

"Fine, I guess you're coming with me, but don't say I didn't warn you!" I told her sternly "Chris you have your orders, make sure the others get there's immediately. I'm leaving in 2 hours." Chris mock saluted me and ran off while April immediately became chipper and basically floated around the table, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek for letting her tag along. Then smiling happily, she rested her head on my shoulder. I swore that I almost heard her purr like a cat.

It took us roughly 2 hours to make sure I was equipped and prepared. I checked the heat compressor on my handgun Sized laser blaster. Back then we called it the Fusion Powered Laser Gun or F.P.L.G. for short, due to its usage of a fusion power conversion mechanic which shot out a laser pulse beam that sent the high energy rounds forward at rates much faster than any normal pulse rifle could. Also aside from us packing normal camping gear I ensured my communicator would be in working order when we left. April on the other hand was always ready to go. I remembered how she never had to do checks and prep she could always just up and leave. If she needed a weapon it was a simple matter of taking off the brooch on her dress, and pressing the gem on the center of it. The brooch would change into her bladed staff, and she was ready. And that usually took half a second if any time at all. After we had everything in order I packed everything into my subspace and we began our walk to the entrance of base prime, the elevator where we had first entered just 3 weeks prior.

Treks came running up to us as we were making our way to the entrance elevator. "h-HEY ALEX! WAIT UP!" Treks yelled at us just before stopping. He stooped over for a moment to catch his breath, and then regained his composure. Treks then held out something to me in each of his hands. In his right hand he had what looked like a wristwatch with a covering plate. In the other he had what looked like 2 small chips that were about the size and shape of today's mini SD cards. "The computer wristband watch is ready, and these chips here are for visors. They allow the visuals uplink to the computer watch which uplinks on a remote frequency to the base, and Naomi's database. It's on a secured hacker proof frequency that I coded myself." Treks said to me with a smirk, and then continued. "The keyboard console is holographic and imbedded in the visors visuals; the whole system is designed to react to your movements and audio commands. The visors themselves can even give tactical readouts in battle without the aid of the watch merely by reading your basic neural patterns, so if you needed information on the enemy, like their power level, or energy signature, or what the energy type is of the blast they fired at you, or whatever, then this thing can tell you. Also there is every type of view on this thing, from normal vision to night, infrared, x-ray, whatever you need! And they all flip through seamlessly!" I took the objects from him and removed my old wrist communicator and began attaching the wristband to my right arm. While finishing with the computer watch, as I began to call it, I looked at Treks.

"So where do I place these chips for the visors? And will I still need my communicator?" I asked him.

"There's a comm. System built into the watch. So no, you won't need an external one. As for the chips, you place one on each temple on your head. They 'snap-in' place and won't move. Don't worry they won't be uncomfortable or break skin or anything. Luke's special adhesive is on the backing of these things so you won't even know they're there. You activate the visor by tapping the right chip twice quickly and deactivate it by touching the right chip once. Since the visors have some limited ability to read your neural patterns, you switch modes of vision by tapping the left temple and think about what you want; it will pull up the closest match to what it can display." Treks' information was right about everything he had given me that day. To this day I still use those devices, the updates are all software based and I've never needed a replacement. The glinting look in his eyes as he saw me with them on told me that he was very proud of his creation, and rightfully so. I gave him a nod of approval.

"Thank you Treks. I can't wait to try them out!" I said with a smile.

"Have a safe trip you two, Godspeed! Remember April we need our leader back alive and breathing! So keep him safe!" Treks said as we clasped hands in a farewell. April gave a big smile of assurance which was all she normally needed to give to say 'I will'.

After the farewell we headed into the elevator shaft and began our ascent back to the surface. Given the speed of the elevator and how far down we were it took us about an hour to make it to the top. The elevator itself was in a dimensional gravity well all its own to avoid any issues with being crushed by its ascent speed and the gravity of earth. Overall it was a nice ride.

We eventually made it to the surface and stepped outside, blinking in the sunlight. It was a beautiful day, very warm, and the valley we stepped out into seemingly agreed with its wonderfully lush grass, flowers, and shrubs. There were rabbits and other small animals at play in the warm light of the day, and the lake nearby also had fish jumping out of the water to sun. I caught myself thinking how peaceful this planet was at times, how we had such a task ahead of us to keep it like this, and out of the Negaverse' rule. I looked up to check the sky. There was a good amount of cloud cover, and I could tell there was a nice, strong wind blowing in the upper atmosphere from how fast the clouds were moving. I motioned for April to come closer and as she did, she wrapped her arms around me. I took one arm around her waist, and with that, I began to levitate off the ground and ascend into the sky. In no time at all we were flying a considerable height above ground, but still low enough to avoid tripping off any radar. The trip to Tokyo took roughly 4 ½ hours in flight and along the way we saw mountains, forests, grassy plains, and a wonderful glimpse of the ocean while crossing the sea towards Japan. We finally made it to the outskirts of the Tokyo county limits at night and began to assess where we were going to set up camp until morning before sighting an open, undeveloped area away from houses.

After I landed, I pulled everything out of my subspace which I packed earlier. When that was done, I opened the communicator on my wrist and hailed Treks, whom always took on operational command when I left. "Treks, this is Alex. Come in, over." I voiced over the comm. link.

"Alex! Hey! We were beginning to get worried! How was your trip? Did you guys make it?" He replied with a very enthusiastic tone.

"Yeah, Trip was smooth, we just made it here. There was no sign of Nega activity on the way here; though I doubt it will stay this quiet for long." I voiced in reply. April yawned and I gave a nod in her direction that I was tired as well as I looked at her.

"Did you get any initial scans of the city yet?" Treks responded.

"No but I'll send you what I've scanned on the way here, maybe Naomi can discover something I can't. I hope that Nega detection program of yours is working." I replied with a bit of a sarcastic tone.

"pfft! Of course it'll work! All simulations came up perfect based on the energies we had previously collected from those bastards!" Treks retorted. I chuckled; I always liked picking on him about the stuff he made. His devices, inventions, and programs had never failed us before and I knew all too well this one wouldn't.

"All right, heh, calm down man. I'll send you the data to look at. Ok? I'll contact you guys in the morning to see if the computer came up with anything. Hail me if anything urgent happens, got it?" I said with a bit of a serious tone in my voice, or rather, about as serious a tone one can make when they're dead tired from flying for four hours while keeping their power level as low as possible. It had really wiped me out.

"Definitely… Oh! By the way! Thought you might like to know that we found a maintenance storage locker in the teleportation room and it had all sorts of spare parts! Our new ETA for the repairs on the teleporter is about 30 hours if we work straight through!" Treks said. I could tell he was literally beaming by the sound in his voice. I figured he must have been the one who discovered the hatch.

"Excellent news, I can't wait to see you all here! You'll love this place, it's very beautiful here. Anyways I'm going to find a place to set up camp until we can get a hotel. Goodnight guys. Alex out" Just before clicking the off button I heard Treks give me an 'affirmative', and 'treks out', standard protocol for ending military conversations.

After closing the communicator covering on the watch, April walked up to me. "Alex, I think here would actually be a good place. It's outside the city limits and we wouldn't be breaking any local laws setting up here. We could set up a camp here without any problem, and besides I'm very sleepy." April said in a tired voice. I nodded in approval to the idea, and found a place over a nearby hill that was out of view with trees and shrubs all around. It took me about 15 minutes to set up the tent and unpack the sleeping bags. Finally with everything set up, we crawled into the tent, zipped it up, and snuggled in our sleeping bags close to one another as we fell asleep.

"Wake up sleepy head! It's almost 9:30am here in Tokyo!" Was the first thing that greeted me into the morning, April and her ever so bright and chipper voice. She was leaning over me, nudging me to wake up. The realm of dreams was the only true sanctuary I ever had from all the fighting and chaos from the war with the Negaverse. Unfortunately, sometimes they even invaded me in my sleep as well. This time though, I was fortunate that my dreams were peaceful.

"Ugh, morning already…?" I said with a sigh as I rolled over onto my back. Just then I looked up and locked eyes with April, who was giving me a very soft, loving look.

"I've let you sleep in as long as I could, but people are starting to come close to our hiding spot dearie." She said, smiling at me. I smiled as well because I realized just how close we were at that moment. It was something I never thought we could be, but she evidently felt. She gazed deep into my eyes with that loving look of hers and leaned closer to me, then gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Come love, it's time we get started." She said with a tone of voice that almost sounded like music the ears. I merely blushed and nodded. April placed her hand on my chest and pressed on me lightly just before helping pull the covers off me. I could feel an odd warming sensation fill my body for a moment, before completely fading away, as she moved her hand slowly away.

Just as suddenly as the warmth had come, it faded away. But it left me feeling a soft, glowing, almost tingly sort of pleasant feeling. After getting out of the sack and eating some provisions from the backpack, packing and subspacing everything back up. I went ahead and radioed in to Treks. It was 10:15 in the morning by the time I called in. "Treks, this is Alex. Do you copy? Over." I voiced up. I was immediately answered by Chris' voice over the comm. Link

"Hey! Alex! What kept ya? Did you finally get laid?" April, who was clinging to my arm, blushed, faced away from me and giggled. "ahhh! So we DID get laid! Nice work man! Congrats! Welcome to the world of manho-." I stopped him there with an immediate response.

"CHRIS! No. I did not get 'laid' as you put it. Geeze! Hey, where's Treks?" I said the last part a little more calmly.

"I… I'm here! Alex! What's up!" treks' voice came over the comm. link obviously out of breath.

"Hey treks, I'm calling in my morning report before we head out. Did you find anything more about these Sailor Senshi or the scans I sent you last night?" I replied, yawning. "The scans you sent didn't show us anything except residual energies. But Chris dug up a lot of useful information on the Sailor Senshi. For one, it is confirmed they are all female. There's a bit of new information on one male that appears with them in a black tuxedo like outfit, helping them out occasionally. He is called Tuxedo Mask, but beyond his name, we don't have any more information on him. Also, while reports are sketchy on the exact number of Senshi, we have confirmed at least 3 for sure with two additional images awaiting proper confirmation. Oh! One other thing! There seems to be one Sailor Senshi named for each inner planet in our solar system, with the exception of the earth, which has no scout equivalent, and Jupiter, which does. There is one for our moon though, strange huh? Bring up your visor and I'll plug in the visuals for you to see." I did as treks instructed and a blue light bent around the front of my vision over my eyes, from temple to temple on my head, in a concentrated blue light energy shell. There was no warmth to it and it wasn't obstructively bright either. Looking through them was just like looking through dark blue tinted sunglasses. I looked at April and she let out a giggle at how funny I looked with them on. I smiled at her and motioned that it was okay to explore a bit while I did this. She headed out towards a small flower patch to tend, as would any Cetra in a wild field on any given day.

My field of view suddenly lit up with full color images of five teenage girls in different colored fuku. "What you see before you are the images we have procured from the newsfeeds and the cover-ups from some local authorities." Treks said. I counted the pictures, looking them over I saw they were sectioned off into two columns and three rows, on the right side of my field of vision so as to be out of the way of my ability to see in front of me. The upper left picture looked like a young blue eyed girl, with blonde hair done up into two small buns. To me, they kind of looked like large meatballs on each side of her parted hair with big red gems on each ball. The rest of her long hair flowed down in what seemed to be an individual pony tail setup, and there was a gold tiara on her forehead with a red stone in the center. Upper right showed a young girl with short blue hair, blue eyes, and a gold tiara with an aqua colored stone on her forehead as well. Continuing to look at the list there were girls with similar tiaras with different colored stones in them, all pictures also had the corresponding scout name underneath them. One though, appeared different than the others. Under her picture it read 'Sailor V'.

"What you see here is in fact the images we've been able to acquire on these girls. They call themselves things like 'Sailor Moon' and 'Sailor Mars' whichever planet they correspond to. There is one though, Sailor V, in which we are not currently sure if she is a Senshi like the other four or not. However, she is close enough in appearance to the others, and the story in London matches the reports in Tokyo enough, that we felt it was needed to place her in this report as well. We have also not confirmed the Senshi in dark green with the brown hair which we labeled here as 'Jupiter' for reference." Treks said. I was impressed by the amount of data they had gathered while I was gone. I was glad to have such skilled knights, and friends, by my side.

"I see. Have we been able to confirm as to whether or not these Senshi are, in fact, enemies of the Dark Kingdom?" I asked, glancing over to check on April who looked content tending to the flowers.

"Yes, they are definitely at war with the Dark Kingdom. Do you think they could be convinced to become allies?" He asked, a bit of excitement in his voice. We haven't had allies in our war in a very long time. The last allies we had were crushed by Tralus' knights in a desperate attempt to save a whole town of healers and sages. It wasn't a pretty sight, and we didn't win that day.

"I don't know." I replied. "They're young, and they might see us as a threat too. Although I'll admit one thing, the meatball haired looking one looks an awful lot like Queen Serenity." I was gazing at sailor moon's picture distantly. Remembering what little bits I could of that era, and rekindling the fire within that gives me the strength to continue fighting the Negaverse still to this day. Everyone in the Silver Millennium had all been killed on that fateful day, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

What most that know the legend of the Silver Millennium already know is that the Moon kingdom was torn asunder by the Dark Kingdom's generals and also by the power of the Great Shadow, An evil entity of immeasurable power and force, which was only stopped by a loving Queen of that era and the sacrifice she made for her people and her kingdom. What almost all people however don't know, is that the assault on the Silver Millennium was only possible because it's sister kingdom, the planet Dolphina, was destroyed by an agent of Chaos known as the Doom Phantom. Dolphina was a planet orbiting a binary star system in the Andromeda Galaxy. Back then, it took mere hours to traverse those great distances to get wherever you needed to go. The silver millennium was a shining representation of a peaceful time for most of the local galactic cluster and most kingdoms and planets shared some very awesome technologies with one another. But the Doom Phantom took care of that. With one swift strike of his dark power he literally crushed the planet of Dolphina and obliterated its core. We didn't receive word of the destruction of Dolphina until a mere four hours before the Dark kingdom, with the aid of the Negaverse, attacked.

Just then, April touched me on the shoulder and I snapped out of my trance to hear treks hollering over the comm. Link. "Alex? Alex? Do you read? Are you there?"

"Yeah I'm here, sorry" I replied wrapping my arm around April, clinging to her, still semi haunted by the memories that dug themselves up.

"Hey man I don't know what happened but maybe you'd better take a look at your comm. Relay watch?" Treks said slightly worried.

"Yeah… I'll look into that sometime soon. I'm going to go scout the city now and see what we can find. I'll radio in if I find anything ok?" I replied. I wasn't going to tell him I got distracted. Then he'd just get worried about what I was thinking and I just couldn't have that happening at this time.

"Allright, take it easy man! Treks out." With that his signal flashed off my comm. I then turned off my visors by tapping my right temple once.

"Sailor Senshi, heh." I said out loud as I thought about the pictures.

"So where should we start?" April asked, looking up at me with an exuberant look.

"Well, let's head into the city and see what we can find on foot there. Get energy readings and see where things go from there." I said as I looked at her smiling. She nodded in agreeance and with that, we headed off towards Tokyo.


	3. Chapter 3: Shards of the Silver Crystal

In the Shadow of the Crystal

Chapter 3: Shards of the Silver Crystal

April and I arrived at the Minato-ku ward, a harbor district within Tokyo. There was a crisp, warm air blowing from the late September breeze at our backs, which fit perfectly with the bright sunny day that presented itself. Looking around, I took careful note of our surroundings for any clues of the enemy. But all I saw was the lack of cars populating the side streets, and a clock on a nearby digital billboard which read the current time and day in Japan.

"Wednesday, 10:30am. Hmmm…" I muttered aloud as I watched the letters and numbers on the digital sign scroll past.

"You have such a serious expression. What is it, Alex?" April asked me, watching me closely.

"Hm? Oh it's nothing I suppose. I just feel as if there is something not right here you know?" I replied to her. From the time we stepped foot into the city I could feel a strong presence of the Dark Kingdom. More disturbing however, was this sense of Negaverse energy within Minato-ku as well. It was this fact alone which put me on edge from the moment we entered the city.

"Alex. I wouldn't focus so much on it right now you know? I know you can feel something isn't right here, I can too. It's allright; let's just try to find a place of our own within the city that we can be safe at ok? I think that will make you feel better!" April told me as she looked up at me half pleading to me. I looked at April as she said those words to me. I could tell she was trying to keep me from worrying too much, and she was right in what she was saying.

"Your right April, I need to stay focused on what needs to be done, and not what I'm sensing." I said to her, nodding in her direction. A smile lit up across her face and I could tell she was no longer worried, something that was good for me because I still was. "You know, it's almost lunchtime. What do you say we go grab something to eat? We can find a place after we've gotten some food in us!" I asked her, smiling back.

"Yeah, that's a great idea Alex!" April said as she clung onto my arm tightly. With those words we headed towards the closest location within the city that would have restaurants. There seemed to be signs to mark the districts within the Minato-ku ward. Something I was able to use to my advantage.

I mapped in my head all the different streets, landmarks, and district signs as we walked by them. Walking around downtown to find a good restaurant provided an excellent opportunity to note potential landmarks and points of interest. If we were going to get a place to stay then it would be crucial for me to know the lay of the city, or at least the layout of the Minato-ku area.

We arrived at a district called the Azabu Juban shopping district, or at least, that's what the sign read. "I bet there are small places for burgers and shakes in this area of town. Shopping districts usually have them!" I said to April while looking up at the sign.

"Well then, let's go love!" she chirped in, and with those words we headed into the Shopping district. Our appearance as minors worked out perfectly for our cover, as did April's holding onto my arm as if we were a couple. This served us in two ways. Firstly we were hidden from the enemy as long as we kept our power level pushed way down and two, this cover allowed me to scan the crowds we walked through for any signs of potential enemies or even for the Senshi. It was also nice to be under the guise of cover again and, if even for a little bit, feel like maybe I did have a girl I was in a relationship with.

We walked through the main plaza of the shopping district, and while walking I grabbed some hotel guides, apartment guides, and a paper that had information on local houses for sale and rent. After over a half hour of looking around to get the guides, we finally came to a small corner parlor that sold burgers. Going inside to order our food we found a nice corner booth by a big window, the sun streaming through it. I sat across the table from April and almost immediately after sitting down a waitress walked over to us and took our orders for drinks.

After returning with our drinks she then took our food orders. April ordered some kind of garden salad whereas I went for the Angus steak cheeseburger they had on the menu. When we were finally left alone I pulled out the guides we got previously and began flipping through them.

"Houses for rent, Apartments for re… wow! That's expensive! How do people afford these prices!" I said in shock when looking through price tags for simple one bedroom apartments. The hotel prices were not much better.

"I'm sure something will turn up Alex! We just have to keep looking you know?" April said to me. Just as I was looking through the third booklet the waitress walked back up with our food.

"You two aren't from around here are you?" She said while handing us our plates. "You plan on staying here a long time?" She asked me.

"No, we're visiting from out of town. We only expect to be here for a few months at most." I replied to her. I watched her as she wiped off an empty cup with a rag in front of us, wondering if perhaps she was a spy for the enemy.

"I could tell. Listen if you need a place to stay, my family owns a combo restaurant and loft housing not far from here! Here, this is my Grandmother's business card!" she said, smiling as she handed us a card that she retrieved from her side pocket.

I looked over the card carefully. It read 'Liz's home and hots. Apartments for rent cheap! Call XXX-XXXX for details.' On the back was the address. "Hmmm… your Grandmother's name is Liz then I take it?" I asked the waitress as I handed the card to April for her to read.

"That's right, and my name is Alyssa! Our business is here in the Juban district and it's close to the Shopping centers and the schools and there's even a wonderful park nearby! If you decide to go there, just tell my Grandmother that her granddaughter sent you her way, allright?" Alyssa said to us. I didn't feel as if she were a spy, or that it was a trap of any sort so I decided to give her information and offer some mental credit. As I was about to say something to her in the form of a thank you however, there was this loud rumbling male voice from the back of the parlor that I was unable to understand except for the fact that the voice had said our waitress' name.

"Oh dear, there he goes again. Sorry I got to run! Think about it ok? Bye!" and with those words, Alyssa ran off into the back.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to at least check it out Alex?" April said to me. I nodded in agreement and got out the credit card we created down in Base Prime. This little strip of plastic was an ingenious invention coupled with the hacking capabilities of myself and Treks along with Naomi's ability to manipulate code on a very low level. When this card is swiped through any ATM based network the bank transmits their data down to base, from there Naomi takes the data bits and activates the gold protocol we wrote which allows her to double back into the ruling nation's government and loopback the funds from their mint into the bank in question for the amount being owed. The code also has a triple loop protocol trace on it to make it appear to come from a legit source therefore no suspect of fraud from any of the unsuspecting parties. I remembered thinking about how primitive earth's technology and security infrastructure was compared to what we were used to dealing with. The money from this transaction would be legit, and the country wouldn't even have enough money leaked from it to worry about any inflation.

April gave me a furrowed look. "I wish you guys wouldn't have created that stupid thing." She said while looking at the card.

"Relax. It will only be used for necessary mission expenses. Besides this is a hell of a lot better than stealing the money from a bank." I replied.

"Yeah, but technically you still are…" She replied.

I sighed at her remark and handed our new waiter the card as he approached. As he walked off I looked back to April. "At least this way though, we won't be hurting their fragile economic balance. Besides, at least this way everyone gets paid somehow." I told April. Admittedly I was also a bit unhappy about what needed to be done for our survival in these types of circumstances. But our time spent stocking the base had made us realize the need for such a method. After all, no one pays for our work. So we have to make the best of what our skills can provide for us.

Soon enough the waiter returned with the card in hand and a slip for me to sign. Hoping that treks found the time to write in the last protocols needed to ensure no police or investigation bureau could track the activity of the card I signed it with my full name, Alezandros E. Storm. I wished the waiter to have a good day as he walked off then me and April got out of our seats and headed out to find the address.

"Don't worry April, as soon as I can find us some real legitimate money I won't have to use this thing allright?" I said to her.

"Allright Alex. But we at least need to find a way to pay for a place without having to use that card, okay?" She replied as we walked along the sidewalk. One thing I noticed was the amount of people now moving from one place to the other within the shopping district. There were young people, elderly people, and parents with their small children, all busily moving from one shop to another or walking down the street for an afternoon stroll. With all this activity in the streets there was no way I could use the visors given to me by Treks, that would attract way too much attention. So it meant I needed to rely on my own ability to sense people's innate power to get any sort of reading. There was another thing; I could feel the residual energy of the Dark Kingdom no matter where we went to. Given that, I was sure the Dark Kingdom was somehow monitoring this area for signs of the Senshi and bringing any sort of attention to us, good or bad, would cause them to investigate further. If I wanted the element of surprise then I couldn't allow myself or April to be compromised in any way.

After some time walking we found our way into a main housing district that seemed to be packed with apartment setups and lofts. My senses picked up the residual energy of the Dark Kingdom in this area of the ward as well, but I noticed it was particularly low. As I looked around I noticed that out of all the signs in the street, there was this one sign which stuck out. It was in the shape of a dinner plate in the center of a pillow with the plate decorated with various foods like you would find at a restaurant. The sign read 'Liz's House & Hots. All you can eat and all you can sleep.'

"This must be it." I said as I looked at the sign closely, listing off in my head the different types of foods that I could pick out, like burgers, hot dogs, fish, fries, and others.

"This place has a familiar feel to it, don't you think Alex?" April said, looking kind of spacey.

"Hmm. Your right, like there's someone I used to know that lives here, but I just can't place who the feeling belongs to." I replied to her. "Well at any rate, let's go inside and check it out." 

I opened the door and walked in with April behind me. In the lobby there were tables set up as if the place was a sort of small diner. There were about 5 tables with chairs and a counter in the back of the room for taking orders and paying for services. Off to the side, behind the counter, was a door leading to the back and off to the side on the far wall were stairs leading upwards. We walked up to the desk in the back but there was no one there. There was however, a bell which I rang once.

"I'll be right there!" an older woman's voice said from the back room. Shortly thereafter, an old lady popped out from behind the door. She was short, with grey hair, and eyes that looked like they could pierce the cosmos.

"Oh Alex, Those eyes remind me of Antares!" April whispered to me. I nodded in agreement. There was definitely no mistaking that look of his. It had been too long since my sensei's passing. He taught me so much about what I know now and about how to survive. He even taught me how to hunt down and revive my knights. I owe him everything I am today.

"Welcome to Liz's House and Hots! I'm Liz! So what can I do for a lovely young couple such as you hmm?" the old woman said. I handed her the card her granddaughter handed me earlier.

"Your Granddaughter Alyssa sent us here. She told us to mention her to you. We need a place to stay for a time. Do you have any vacancies?" I replied to her. As the old woman heard my voice her eyes lit up.

"Oh that sweet girl of mine always tries to help others! She really is a wonderful candidate to carry on our legacy!" She said looking at the card. Then she looked up at me. "You must pass one test before I tell you any more, young lad! It's tradition that I ask anyone who comes here to rent some space to try and solve a small puzzle of mine."

She then reached underneath her counter and brought out a small box which appeared to be a keyless chest. "This chest is a very special relic passed down through generations of my family line. It is said that there is a message for one who is worthy enough to accept it. But only the one whose energy was originally consigned to this box will be able to unlock it. I know it's a silly request but passing this to as many people as possible is something my family has done for generations now. So therefore, I ask that you give it a try but you are under no obligation to do so my dear."

I eyed the box suspiciously, noting that it had no entry point for a key, black with gold trim, and very dusty. But it had a small seal on the front clasp. I recognized the seal as Antares' family crest and knew that the seal was where the energy had to be placed in. I nodded to the old lady.

"I'll accept your request." I told her, looking down as I met her gaze.

"In all my years, you are the first to accept." She replied, looking up into mine.

"You have his eyes you know." I replied back to her as I placed my thumb on the seal. I saw her eyes get wide at my remark and then she looked down at the box. It began to vibrate as it accepted the reading of my energy signature, and then it opened on its own with a glow emanating from inside it.

April gasped. "wh… what is it?" She said with her hands over her mouth in astonishment.

"It's a data crystal from the moon kingdom's ancient technology." I replied to her. Inside the box was a small clear crystal that was held in an upright position by three prongs on a base. The wire prongs were ivory and the base was a mirror finish. The only reason I knew about what we were looking at was because Antares, my old teacher, had shown me this very same device before I had to leave. Suddenly the crystal began to glow and a projection of an old man wearing a monk's garb holding a long walking stick appeared next to me and April. The old woman was completely in shock from the sudden appearance of her ancestor.

"Ahh! Alex my boy! It's been so long since I've seen you!" the old man said.

"Antares, this is amazing! How did you manage!" I replied but was cut off when he held up his hand to me for silence.

"I know what you're thinking. But this is not as it seems. This device merely acts as a recording system to hold my thoughts and my image. Sort of like an advanced diary! This particular datalys crystal, as they are called, holds a vital piece of information for you and for the member of my family in which has been entrusted with its keeping. The primary ground rule of this device that you should know is that I cannot directly interact with you. This is more like a mediation device of sorts. Alex, I knew that you and April would eventually find me. I foresaw this event and the calamity that approaches the two of you, and your knights. Within this crystal I leave you with valuable training material for another aspect of your powers known as the Force. You will be required to learn as much as you can from this training before your mission bring you to confront the evil that you surely feel looming around you." Antares said before changing the direction of his stance. He leaned on his stick a little more heavily than I had remembered, but it had also been a very long time since I saw him last.

"April, it is so good to see you again my dear! I trust you are taking good care of Alex? I'm sure you are or else he may have never made it as far as he had!" Antares said in April's general direction. He chuckled at the last remark that he made while April merely nodded with tears in her eyes. Antares was like a father to her, and even after all these long years she still missed him dearly, as did I.

Antares then looked directly at the old woman, Liz, and spoke. "I know in this day and age times are hard. But I have one request for the begotten lineage of mine. Accommodate these two as best you can with their basic needs for as long as you are able to. Please I beg you, it is of utmost importance." With those words the holographic image flickered, and died.

"It was truly an honor to see you, my ancestor Antares!" Liz said after the recording stopped. She was looking up at the sky. Then she looked over to us.

"I will have no problem giving you a room at whatever price you need! After all, I can't deny a request from one of our most noble ancestors now can I?" she said with a grin.

"Umm… Well that's good cause see… We don't actually have any money." I said with a nervous chuckle putting my hand behind my head. Liz looked like someone just shot her foot clean off.

"N… no money?" she cried in disbelief. Just then our waitress, Alyssa, came in through the front doors.

"Grandmother, I'm home! Oh! It's you two from the café earlier today! Are you going to be staying here with us then?" She said with a bright and cheery voice.

"N… No money…" Liz said again with tears in her eyes.

"Hmm… You two don't have any money? Well I guess that makes sense seeing as how the two of you are new to the city and all!" Alyssa said while Liz was standing there in a pre-shock state. She then slammed her fist in her hand. "Hey grandmother I have a great idea! Why not have them work for us here and then they don't have to pay you! You're always saying how we need the help here anyways right?" she said. The words instantly perked Liz up.

"What a wonderful idea! The two of you can work for me, and the work alone can be enough to pay for your room, board and free meals!" Liz said with sparkles and lights in her eyes.

April just glowed with happiness at the chance to help in a small restaurant. Me on the other hand was wondering how a Posiverse knight ended up with the task of serving food to civilians. I mean, I'm a warrior not a waiter. Reluctantly I agreed to the proposal. After all, it was the only way we could do it, since April wouldn't allow me to use the credit re-looping protocol we devised. With everything said and done we were lead to a fully furnished apartment on the 6th floor.

"This is wonderful!" April said happily. Her eyes were all lit up with sparkles at the sight of the place we were given.

"You guys can start your work on Monday." Liz said before pardoning herself away. We thanked her as she walked off.

I looked around the room. The whole building had a sense of peace and serenity and this hotel room turned apartment was no different. There was a simple but very comfy couch. A small TV, furnished kitchen with utensils and the like, a microwave, and a big king sized bed.

"One bed, hmmm." I said staring at it.

"That's okay Alex; I don't mind sleeping with you." April said blushing slightly. Admittedly I blushed as well at the thought.

"Well for now it will have to do." I replied to her as I tried my best to shrug off the feelings I felt. April in the meantime walked over to one side of the bed and took off her shoes. She then unclipped her brooch, and laid it on the nightstand on her side of the bed.

"What's the matter? Are you tired?" I asked. As far as I knew, she never ever took off her brooch except to go to bed. After all, to her it's much more than a simple transforming weapon. To her, it's also a memento.

"No dearie! I'm going to take a shower." She said with a giggle, looking at me with another one of those soft smiles. She then got up and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her, only leaving it slightly cracked.

"Hey, while you're doing that, I'm going to head out and hit some more places on my own allright?" I said, peeking through the crack from a distance. A part of me was a bit disappointed to see only white feathers, but nevertheless, I set a spare key beside her brooch on the nightstand. As I did so, the sapphire in the middle of it glimmered slightly as my hand got close to it.

"I left you a key by your brooch ok? Oh and your brooch's stone shimmered a bit, does that mean anything?" I yelled through the room so she could hear. Through the crack I could tell she was checking her wings.

"That's fine you go ahead. I'll catch up if you need me!" she replied. April always had this ability to find me whenever I needed her the most.

"What about the glow?" I responded, with a bit of concern in my voice.

"It's just saying it loves you!" she replied. I heard a giggle coming through the door so I didn't think much of it and left, locking the door behind me. This may have been unfamiliar ground to us but I was confident she would be ok. After all, we were well hidden in heavy population.

It was already mid-afternoon by this time and I decided that the best place to hit first would be a school to see if I could get some evidence on the Senshi. After all, the report Treks had given me stated that these Sailor Senshi were young girls. So I headed towards the closest school first. It was called Juban Municipal Junior High School. When I got to the school the grounds were filled with junior students milling about, enjoying the fair weather. Given my appearance of around 16, it was relatively easy for me to blend in as one of the older students. This made my job easy. I could sense out individual students from their groups with ease to feel for signs of unusual energy without any issues. Any one of the young girls here could also be the Sailor Senshi mentioned in the report.

'Easy as pie…' I thought as I weaved in and around the crowds. None of them paid me any mind as I walked around and away from them towards the school itself. That's when I ran into her, or well, she ran into me. Out from around the corner of the outside wall this girl, with her hair done up oddly close to the Sailor Senshi of the moon, ran into me like a semi running into a brick wall. She hit me so hard that I fell on my back. I laid there, barely registering what just happened. I knew she was coming, I could see her as she turned the corner, but she ran at me so quickly I had no time to react. When I actually managed to look at her I was astonished that I had been knocked flat on my back by such a small girl. I had sustained much harder impacts from my enemies and stayed standing countless times before. But it was this small wisp of a girl that effortlessly knocked me over!

"Ohhhh! Owie!" she said, rubbing her head. She then noticed me lying a bit away from her and rushed over. "Oh! Are you allright! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to run into you like that!" she said to me while pulling on my arm, helping me to my feet. My own senses told me she had a presence that I hadn't felt since the era of the silver millennium. So as she turned to brush off her school uniform, I took a second to risk using my visors and scan her while she was turned away. My scans immediately came back with an unusual result. This girl had a high amount of Nega energy residue on her.

"I'm fine… you should watch where you're going and try to take things slower…" I replied sounding a bit annoyed about being knocked over. I deactivated my visors just before she turned around to face me.

"Sorry about that! I'm late for a meeting with my friends you see… and…" She said while scratching her head in embarrassment. Then she stopped and got a curious look about her. "Hey… I've never seen you around here before… are you new here?" I remembered thinking that she had this very cute expression when she was curious about things.

I just stood there, blinking at her for a second. Not only had she managed to be faster than my reflexes, and able to knock me over, but she had also picked me out where no one else could. "Me? No, I'm just passing through. I'm from out of town and was just wondering what some of Tokyo looks like is all!" I said, smiling at her. I could feel a small sweat drop as it ran down the side of my head. It was a fast lie to make, but a believable one nonetheless.

"I see! Well I'm Serena! What's your name?" she said with an unusual amount of exuberance.

"Alex." I replied, shocked. She was direct and I wasn't prepared for that. Even more so, I couldn't stop myself from giving my real name out to her. My mind trailed back once again to the report of the Sailor Senshi, but just as I was beginning to think about a possible link between this girl and the Senshi, she looked at her watch and screamed.

"Oh no, Rei's gonna kill me! I'm LATE! Nice to meet you Alex! I'm sorry, I've got to go!" she said with more speed than I thought possible, and then with equal speed, she passed me and took off running down the street.

I hadn't walked too far from where I met Serena when the corner of my eye caught a glimmer in the nearby grass. I walked over to where it was and looked down at the source. It was a small crystal. I reached down and picked it up; it was no bigger than the palm of my hand and very light. The crystal was a translucent orange in color. I could see my reflection vaguely in one of its smooth surfaces. It also glimmered vibrantly in the late sun.

"That girl Serena, she must have dropped this thing. Something like this must be valuable to her." I said to myself absently. There was an odd feeling that ran through me while holding the orange crystal, one that I couldn't quite place. Resolving that I would try to find this girl again later when my mission was complete, I pocketed the crystal and continued on my way. It was almost completely dark when I finally arrived at a park close to Liz's apartments. It had been a long day of walking, and getting readings from so many people. I sat down on a bench when I got deep enough in the park and looked up at the moon that was raised high in the sky. My mind wandered back to the girl Serena from earlier, and I got that odd feeling again like when I held the Crystal for the first time.

Absently I pulled the crystal out of my pocket and held it up. "Just an ordinary pretty rock…" I said, looking at it. As I gazed into it, it glimmered again, but this time with the light of the moon, and I felt that same odd feeling. I decided to go ahead and give it a quick scan with my visors. As I turned them on though, a woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes approached me.

"Excuse me! This park is closed! What are you doing here past curfew!" she said as I stared at her. My visors instantly locked onto her and scanned her. The results showed high concentrations of Nega energy on her, just like Serena.

"Excuse me, who are you exactly?" I asked her as I narrowed my eyes at her. There was no mistaking the reading my visors gave me. She was definitely an agent of the Dark Kingdom. I had to play it cool and wait for an opportunity to strike her down swiftly or else my cover would be blown at the wrong moment and they would be alerted to my presence.

"Me? I am a park administrator!" She said. I thought she looked a bit young to be a park administrator or anything. Then she eyed the crystal. "That stone you have there was reported missing by someone earlier today! Give it here!" she said. Before I could defend myself she snatched the crystal out of my hands. As she stepped back to run off I stood up and immediately put my hand to my right hip which summoned my gun from subspace. I pointed it in her direction, firing one shot at her feet in front of her which froze her in place from shock.

"I don't care who you are or who you think you are. That crystal does not belong to you. Give. It. Back." As I said those last words I held out my hand. My visors also began looking through another scan protocol on the woman and came up with an unusual reading of moon based magic around her. Potentially a chameleon based spell to hide her true identity. I wondered why someone from the Dark Kingdom would be using moon magic rather than their own power. I deduced it was likely they did this to try and throw their enemies off track, smart move indeed.

The woman stood there frozen in place, staring down my gun with fear in her eyes. She almost looked like she was going to cry. I glanced at the crystal and as I did the visors instantly went off. The results were astounding. The most important piece of information I had ever found in my life appeared in my view.

"The crystal, it's got energy readings exactly like the imperium silver crystal!" I said out loud, unable to keep the words from escaping. My heart must have skipped 20 beats and I felt like time had stopped. My whole body went limp and my gun lowered. A rush of emotion I hadn't felt in many years came over me. I resolved to get it back by all means necessary. I re-aimed my weapon to the woman and shouted.

"Hand over that crystal now! No more games!" was what I said to her. But she got just as equally of a defiant look on her face and shouted back at me.

"No! I know you work for the enemy and you will never get this from me! Moon Prism POWER!" she replied in a very commanding tone. I then watched, to my shock, her transform into sailor moon before my eyes. "For love and justice! Pretty Sailor Soldier, Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!" She said as she performed this unusual call sign with her hands.

"You're Sailor Moon?" I shouted. As I steeled myself for her to attack I felt the tingle of electricity in the air.

"Supreme THUNDER!" a female voice said right before a huge bolt of electricity came hurdling towards me. I dodged the blast rolling out of its way and, unfortunately, farther away from Sailor Moon. I then holstered my gun back to my right hip, allowing it to disappear back into subspace. Technology doesn't do well against magic, something I learned all too well in the early days. I would have to employ my own spells to win this night. Just then however, three other girls jumped in front of sailor moon in a defensive stance around her. I instantly recognized these to be the other Senshi from the report. Unsure of where they stood in the war, and certain that I had to reclaim that crystal at all costs. I stood up, got into my fighting stance, and readied to fight them to the death…


End file.
